Also on Thursday, Pfc. Donnell A. Hamilton, 20, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, died at Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, from an illness he contracted in Ghanzi Province in Afghanistan.

With combat operations in Afghanistan ending this year, President Barack Obama has announced he plans for almost 10,000 American troops to remain in the country in 2015 if the Afghan government signs a security agreement.

The inauguration of the new president, originally scheduled for the first week of August, will be postponed while the votes are recounted.

Violence still flares. On July 15, a car bomb exploded in a busy market in eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 40 people, officials said, in what is said to be the deadliest attack in the country this year.